


Got the Jitters

by iriswesttt



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 05:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5815189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswesttt/pseuds/iriswesttt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iris and Barry's first date (written to fill a prompt at tumblr)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got the Jitters

**Author's Note:**

> Posted a little while ago at my tumblr iriswestthings

This was stupid, Iris kept telling herself as she stood in front of his apartment door. Firstly it was stupid because she had the key. She was holding it in between her fingers, debating whether or not to use it. Secondly it was stupid because it was Barry. She had been on dates with Barry her whole life.   
  


Granted, she was kind of hoping this one would end differently but he was without a doubt the person she had spend more time with throughout of her life, the person she could be in silence with and not feel the need to fill the room with nonsense blabber, the one person who seemed to understand her cues and her feelings better than herself, so the fact that she needed to keep repeating like a mantra _it will be fine, it will be fine_  was completely and utterly ridiculous, specially considering that the only area left untried in their relationship, if their first kiss was anything to go by, would be just as fun as the rest of it. Hopefully, they would get lucky, no pun intended, and it would be even a little more fun.

Admittedly there had been a lot of adrenaline going on on their first kiss (at the Jitters rooftop, where Barry had left her after running her out of the aim of a meta-human not so pleased with what she had written about him). He had yelled at her for putting herself in danger without warning him first and she had yelled back at him, saying that if he cared for her half of what he did before that damn singularity he would have known exactly where she was, taking him by surprise, to which he got over very quickly, pulling her closer by the arms and cradling her face with gloved hands and placing a soft, muted, kiss on her lips, turned desperate in a matter of seconds, but then they had Cisco calling her, mad Barry had turned off the communicators, saying Barry had to go, and maybe that moment, that kiss, as good as it was, was full of other things that weren’t constant for them.

So there she was, about to jump off of her skin with nervous excitement, which, at the moment, was paralysing, stopping her from opening, or even knocking on, the door.

As it turns out Barry opened it before she could actually decide between the two, mumbling;  

“Oh, Iris, I thought I heard something.”

She smiled at him, hoping it looked less maniac than it felt. He was looking particularly good, on the jeans that made his legs five feet long, and a white shirt and a grey sweater that matched the colour of her tight dress, and she relaxed a little at the way his eyes travelled up and down her body, making his neck and ears turn pink telling her;

“You look — ”, and his voice died on his throat, incapable of finding an appropriate adjective and she felt her smile growing bigger as she answered to his compliment;

“Just what I was going for.”

He moved in to greet her, probably with a kiss on the lips, as she aimed to his cheek and they ended up painfully knocking their heads together, causing Barry to blush several levels of scarlet that would probably have matched his suit, apologising profusely, and unfortunately avoiding any type of touching as they walked to the fancy french restaurant he had somehow pulled out a reservation, after telling her they should go or they would be late.

She couldn’t bring herself to touch him either, her stomach twisting and turning, her breath short, as she kept reminding herself that the best part of dating your best friend is that you could skip the getting to know the other person part of dating. She had always hated that part, the awkwardness that came with it, the possibility of an unpleasant surprise just around the corner. She should be feeling some kind of comfort on the fact that she could predict his order, having hers predicted by him, on the fact that she was pretty sure no one knew her like he did, would ever know her like he did, and that she was the one person who could understand what he needed even when he couldn’t do that himself. 

Instead her mind was blank and she couldn’t even come up with anything to tell him, not even about how her day had been, and it wasn’t their usual silence, calming and supportive, it was something foreign. He seemed to be lost as well, missing completely the fact that she had put her hands over the table in hopes he would reach out to it, or perhaps also incapable of making himself reach for her, sharing with her exactly she was feeling. 

Maybe they should have just stayed home, fucking, and getting this new found self-consciousness over with.

As they stood outside the restaurant after an incredible expensive and uneasy diner she was wondering how exactly she could fix it, as he said, in a small upset voice;

“Well, that was unpleasant.”

Something cold dropped on her stomach as she silently prayed he didn’t call their night over, and failing to come up with anything else, she tried;

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Are you kidding? The tiny portions and all this …”

“Stiffness?”, she offered. 

“… between us. This is ridiculous.”, he echoed her thoughts.

“I’m sorry I’m being weird about it.”

“I’m sorry I picked this restaurant. It was a bad choice.”

He rubbed his hands together and after a sharp breath he reached for her hand, delicately, enlacing their fingers, his free hand travelling up and down her arm and all of her nervousness dissolved under it and she laughed in relief;

“It’s ok.”  

She was about to suggest for them to go back home and try letting the touching part of the date begin but he beat her to it, proposing something different;

“Do you want to go to the Alibi? We can play darts, and have french fries and mint ice cream? And a drink that doesn’t cost what we make monthly combined.”

Now, that sounded like something they would have fun doing, so even if she was feeling a bit impatient she decided to indulge him, but not before reaching for the nape of his neck, bringing him down to her. 

She stopped him as he reached for a kiss, his lips ghosting over hers, his eyes closed in anticipation, and she pulled away slightly, decided she would tease him a little bit, enjoying the way his lips trailed for hers, his mouth already slightly opened, making it so easy to just slip into it, the tingling feeling of expectancy in her stomach as he opened his eyes again, searching for the reason she was making him chase after her, and she could see the moment he decided to let her have her fun, stilling, allowing her to nuzzle their noses together, smelling him in, a little smirk on his pink lips as hers touched his, softly, barely there and then as her teeth grazed over his upper, then the bottom lip, as he opened them wider, willingly, his hands on her waist pulling her closer and a little sound scape from her in the reassurance of  _this was going to work_.  
_______________________

“You know, the only fun in playing darts with you was that I always won.”

Barry laughed at her whine, as his dart hit the spot, grabbing the spoon from her hand and licking the ice cream from it a little indecently. Or maybe it was her who, at the moment, seemed incapable of thinking about anything else but better uses for his tongue. And fingers. Which, along with the way he was ogling her, was making her warm all over.

“The only fun? Well, it’s your turn, here’s your chance”, he told her as she stood transfixed under his gaze, studying his shoulders, and the way his shirt seemed to sit perfectly on it (for how long exactly had them been that broad?), the way that when he reached out for something, or stretched for the boards above him, the hem of it would go up a little, teasingly exposing a bit of skin and making her want to sneak her hands under it, feeling the soft skin and the firm muscles of his stomach below her fingers.

He must have noticed the longing in her eyes for he turned pink again, but froze right in front of her, putting the ice-cream bowl down, placing himself seemingly all around her, brushing her hair under her ears and moving in to kiss her slowly, pressing her between the empty pool table by their side, and his body, and she had enough, no more taking things slowly. Screw playing darts, they could play darts anytime, now she had about ten years of  kissing and biting and pulling and licking to make up for;

“I think we should go home.”, her voice sounded strangled and foreign to her own ears, but it got a beam out of him, one that reflected back to her what she was feeling, then it turned into something more wicked as he inquired;

“Is that because I’m winning?”

“Nope”, her answer muffled by the fact that her tongue was currently inside his mouth.

“You’ve always been such a terrible looser”, he let her know between kisses.

 She pushed him away to inform him that the only reason she had lost was because of his powers and that wasn’t fair play.

“Iris,” he murmured, and the way her name sounded on his lips caused goosebumps on her already tickling skin, “I can’t exactly help my powers.”

She answered to it in a moan, licking his bottom lip and pulling it between her teeth as she let her hands travelled accordingly, to his ass, and she felt him vibrating all over, his whole body pressed everywhere against hers and she whispered;

“Well, let’s put them to a better use then.”

And he uttered a barely audible  _ok_  as he looked around and, after making sure no one was watching, whisked them out of the bar.  
_______________________

Iris woke up to Barry, half under her, warm and comfortable, feeling his skin pressing hers everywhere their bodies touched, looking peacefully, still asleep. His pretty, long, eyelashes tangling together, his hair tussled, their legs intertwined, and the pad of her fingers counting the reassurance steady beats of his quickened heart. She shifted her weight, bringing herself even closer, hoping somehow they could melt into each other, burying  her nose on the crook of his neck, that smelled like sex and home, and letting herself feel entangled to him.

She brushed his hair off his forehead and stilled to his hand, as it travelled up and down her spine letting her know he had woken up, eyes still closed as a grin formed on his lips and he murmured in a voice heavy and full of sleep;

“ Hi.”

“Good morning”, she replied, placing a kiss on his neck and the another one on his jaw line. He turned to her, his lips searching for hers and she hid them in his neck;

“No, I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

He laughed at her, turning over, away from her, leaving a momentary cold from the sudden absence of his body, to his nightstand and fumbling for something she would discover to be mint drops, popping one into his mouth and one on hers, enquiring;

“There you go, can I have my kiss now?”

To which she obliged, willingly, but not before telling him;

“Very smooth, Bartholomew, bet you do that to all the other girls”, causing him to groan, at his full first name, or perhaps at the other girls snide comment. She giggled at it anyway, enjoying the way his hands travelled her body, the pad of his thumbs flickering on her nipples, as he kissed her, and when he pulled back she was ready for some kind of teasing response, instead he let her know solemnly, like it was an information she did not possess;

“You’re naked.”

“So are you.”

“I know, we’re naked, together. Together, naked.” He chanted in a sing song voice, diving under the covers to place a wet kiss by the side of her left boob, where she had the birth mark, and it cooled under the effect of the menthol lingering on his lips. 

He placed his body over hers, holding himself in his forearm by her shoulders, and she pet his soft hair and he tried another kiss, letting some his weight pressured down on her, his hand cradling her face, it was dainty and reverently this time, and her response didn’t exactly matched it, perhaps more eager than she intended, until she bit on his cheek, noticing him crying into their kiss when she tasted his tears. 

“Bear? You’re crying?”

She pulled herself from under him, tensing up with the prospect of how things could have gone wrong in the last five seconds.

“It’s ok.”, he smiled softly, drying his tears with the back of his hand.  

“Bear.”

He laughed a humourless laugh and tried again;

“It’s just — it’s nothing.”

She sat up at that. How could he still think he could just flat out hide something from her and she wouldn’t notice? He kept himself in place though, looking up at her from under his lashes, giving her his best puppy eyes and she had to strained herself to not just let it slide, because, if she did, it would hover over her, making her insane, so if the soft strategy didn’t work she would try a harsher one instead;

“Barry?”

There wasn’t any sneering or pretending from him under her stern gaze, instead he looked her dead in eyes and told her;

“I love you.”

And it wasn’t like she didn’t know that. He has told her that before. And even before that, before that Christmas and before this whole mess they have made of themselves, that was something she had always had some sort of knowledge of, just like she had always known she loved him, how he was the one constant thing in her life, something that defined her relationships (somehow out of her control), and the way she felt about his, about the girls he would pick, how she could never fully approve of them, just like Linda, that once she was no longer with Barry had become someone so dear to her, while, before, all she could see were her flaws. 

But sometimes you don’t have a full continuousness of what you know, somethings just hang there, in the back of your head, deep down your lungs, flowing around your veins, and when you stop and think about it, it feels like your whole life is about to come tumbling down, so you don’t.

On the talk they had had, after the kiss but before the date, she had said a lot of things stuck on her throat. Barry had recount to her, apologetically, how he had erased their first kiss when he turned back time the first time, and she had mourn something she had never lived, something she felt robbed off. He had also declared, with an indescribable look in his eyes, that even though he could like all the other girls they could never make him feel like she did. They had certainly danced around those three words, they had meant it in the other stuff they had said, but she knew he was holding back, probably hoping she would say them first, and now they were out of his lips like a confession, bursting out of them on its own accord. She tried forming the words in her mind first, saying them back. She knew she felt it, but somehow they kept stuck. So she asked instead;

“Is that why you’re crying?”

He sat up then too, by her side, a little smile on his lips as he brushed her hair behind her ear and she hoped he knew, that she felt it too, knew why it seemed impossible for her to say it back, even if she herself, didn’t, not fully any way.

“You’re so beautiful.”, he breathed, his fingers skittering on her skin, sending pleasant shivers down her spine. She didn’t know how to respond to it, to the utter adoration on his eyes, vaguely wondering if it was there all along and how she could have missed it for so long. So she teased him; 

“Is that why you’re crying?”

He smiled bigger at her joke, fingers lingering on her collar bones and he capably made himself vulnerable again, even when she couldn’t, telling her;

“No.  _Iris._  This,  _us…_ , I just got a little overwhelmed.”

“Are you happy though?”, and that was a little vulnerability, she thought, he would hopefully be able to identify how it was saying, _I need reassurance, keep telling me that_.  

Barry responded to it by slipping his hands under her knees, pulling her under him, giving her a wet, deep kiss that, along with the giggle at the howl of amusement and surprise she uttered, she took gladly for an answer.


End file.
